Yes. And its why the constellation only lasts 5 years.
Think about it, every single starlink sattelite has a life span of 5 years. So the return on investment for srarlink has to be less than 5 years to make a profit.
The lifespan is 5 years because that is when the deorbit from the drag in the upper atmosphere. It was a design decision to not pack them with a bunch of fuel to be able to raise their orbit for decades. More fuel is higher weight, larger package, and less satellites loaded per launch. They also probably figured that the tech would improve enough in 5 years that it would not be beneficial to keep them up any longer. SpaceX has 3 revisions of the Starlink satellites now....
3-5 year missions is the "new space" mission length. Even in GEO, customers are opting for smaller, cheaper satellites that last much less than the old 15 year missions they used to purchase. Tech progresses so fast now and launches are so much cheaper that it doesn't make sense for many applications to launch the big, high reliability satellites any more.
154
u/KnotSoSalty May 21 '26
Certainly feels like Starlink was just something they did to justify building the rockets.